The flying machine piloted by Porco Rosso in Studio Ghibli’s Porco Rosso is the Savoia S.21.
Porco’s red aircraft is a fictionalized Italian seaplane associated with the Savoia-Marchetti name. The film follows Marco Pagot, an expert pilot and former World War I aviator who has been transformed into an anthropomorphic pig.
The story is set around the Adriatic Sea during the interwar period. Porco works as a bounty hunter who fights air pirates, and his aircraft is central to the film’s aerial battles and its romanticized aviation setting.
The real Savoia S.21 was a different Italian aircraft, so the film’s machine should not be treated as a precise historical replica. It is also easy to confuse Porco’s plane with the Curtiss aircraft flown by his rival Donald Curtis.